I am Fear. I am Dread. I am the Monster that lives in his closet. And I am failing.
She is the reason I am failing. She lives beneath his bed. She whispers sweet nothings in his ears. She sings him to sleep. When his little foot peeps out from the covers, she slips it gently back between the sheets before I can grab it. I do not know where She comes from. I do not know how the boy tamed Her. Perhaps it was his mother, inventing a new fairy tale, reassuring him, “Yes there is a monster under the bed. She keeps it clean and free from dust bunnies. Do not fear. She’s a friendly monster.”
I am not a friendly monster.
She keeps me from him. I try to get close, to hover over him, to creep up from behind, but every time she surrounds him, shelters him.
Every night I try to explain. She watches me in silence. She does not move, does not respond. Possibly she does not hear.
I try to explain. I do only my duty. I was created for him. I am his Monster, his first one. Children need fear. To prepare them. Children need monsters to defeat. Because a few years from now, that child will not be a child. He will grow and he will forget and he will face a world that is more painful and cruel than any fright I could give him. Children cannot control their world, and the cruelties adults inflict, or simply fail to prevent. I do not create fear. It exists, everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies, all the uncertainties of the world. I merely shape it, give it an image. I give the child a battle to fight. To win.
This creature, who is lovely to be sure, who glows and twinkles and has no claws, this creature, made up of faith and confidence, made up of adult lies and, yes, a glint of anger—impossible not to be drawn to this creature, who offers reassurance and warm breath and the scent of peppermint.
And I am a boogeyman, with all that implies. And I must do my duty. I fight her, night after night. The boy needs me. She cannot protect him always. And if I do not exist, there is nothing for him to defeat. Instead the fear will settle over him in a cloud, indefinable, insidious. It will cover him like sand, like burs.
I give fear its shape, but I am not Fear. I am Courage.
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